The art of hanging art

One of my birthday gifts was $200 for art (the other was a book I've been squeeing about).

You can imagine how much this pleases me. I have several pieces I need to frame, a few in some nice frames-- namely a first run print I got from a local artist, and the inking Akemi did of First for me-- and I've also been debating other things to buy.

A lot of the art I've been keeping an eye on is pretty much in poster and unnumbered print format. I was just telling a friend that I feel kind of guilty about this fact, since I have very little original art and that's something you really should have in a real home as opposed to a dorm.

In the midst of that conversation, I came across this post on Apartment Therapy: What Are Your Wall Hanging Dos and Don'ts? Number one take away from this for me: no pre-fab art. Pre-fab is apparently anything that is not original. "For the price they charge for a replica "print" of Audrey Hepburn, anyone can go to their local arts fair and find an original work by real artist."

So says an artist. I wonder where the hell they're selling their wares, because at the art fair I went to recently, I found nothing I liked for less than $500. They were prints of photographs! For $500! Photography is hard work, I know, but I think of my own photography dithering and my sister's paintings and, well, it just doesn't feel right, especially for a print that's not even part of a limited run or anything. At another fair I did get a first run print for $40, but I saw nothing that... well, reasonable at the Coconut Grove festival (I know, Coconut Grove is probably your tip-off for why that is).

Then again, looking at people's houses on various design sites, they generally have art of a very different quality than the sort I look for. Lots of abstract modern stuff, like a white canvas with four broad brushstrokes painted on it and they paid way too much to achieve the same effect they could have done themselves with a blank canvas and some paint. I tell myself that modern is just the it thing for design now, and these are design pieces or homes designed by very in-the-know types of people.

But then I have to wonder, what do most people have hanging on their walls?